Does anyone sense undercurrents from the Left about the Big Society? You might detect the anguish at the threat of a loss of control - that "their turf" is being taken away and will be controlled and abused by "the other".
In a way they might now get a sense of what I as a Libertarian have felt about The State, but one must first remove from their emotions the clag of vested interests, entitlement, monopoly and collectivism and distil out the feeling that one has no control. For some, they are happy for group X to have control and they abdicate to it, gnashing teeth when group Y takes over. For me, X or Y is a false dichotomy and I want to decide to whom, when or if at all I abdicate control. Maybe it is too much to ask that The Left understand that if this occurs at the individual level, then the greatest number can be free.
What we are seeing in the Big Society appears to be a Changing of the Guard, not the removal of the guard. One in-crowd to be replaced by another. Dave Spart replaced by Hyacinth Bucket. The Nationalisation replaced by out-sourcing. I have yet to see any clear plan that suggests we will get free and open plurality, true voluntarism, but many hints that it will be monopolistic in nature and therefore still coercive. This is no surprise, for the State only truly understands monopoly, and that is unremarkable, for the State is the most rigorously enforced monopoly there is.
I hope some of the Left can learn from their visceral reaction to the Big Society and get a sense of how others feel about groups moving in to monopolise the social sphere. I do hope they will not fall into the trap of wanting "their turn next time", but to see that the least bad way forward is for the Sparts and the Buckets to be free to set up their own solutions in parallel without State enforcement, monopoly or concession and for each individual, not "the people" or some other kind of collective or tyranny of the majority, in turn to be free to decide atomically, individually, asynchronously across a plurality. I am not holding my breath.
p.s. Francis Maude wants children to be taught in his Youth Camps that they have an "obligation" beyond "just" being law abiding. Note the term "obligation". I say bring on the large pot, for Maude is in desperate need of having the opportunity of boiling his own head. Obligation exists in society, but it is one upon the State to maintain borders and Rule of Law, for it takes on that obligation because it demands taxes by force.
Use of alcohol and drugs at the workplace
24 minutes ago
6 comments:
Please, please, please check your spelling before posting!! It looks REALLY amateurish otherwise.
Title corrected.
"Dave Spart replaced by Hyacinth Bucket."
This is *exactly* how I understand the Big Society - although it's so woolly, vague and vacuous that I could be wrong. Synonyms? Well, crap springs immediately to mind...
I'm not holding my breath either. In fact based on a previous concrete experience, I'm not even thinking about holding my breath.
I can still remember, at the peak of the public smoking ban debate, trying to use this impingement on freedom to open the eyes of those who still believed in prohibitions against sex work and recreational drugs, and failed miserably.
I tried this on a previous campaign leader for Freedom to Choose, the anti smoking ban group who's primary opposition was on libertarian grounds, pointing out that he opposed legal sex work and recreational drugs, pointing out the contradiction between these positions. He didn't budge an inch.
Apparently, according to him, sex work and drugs are "different", not worthy of liberty.
"I have yet to see any clear plan that suggests we will get free and open plurality, true voluntarism, but many hints that it will be monopolistic in nature and therefore still coercive. This is no surprise, for the State only truly understands monopoly, and that is unremarkable..."
Cameron's crew don't even know how (or want) to decentralise power, let alone give it away entirely; most importantly whatever some might think will happen there's a certain inevitability of it being tyrannical in reality for the reasons you give (quoted), but also for the reason that the hybrid PPP approach is bound to squeeze out not just the state sector but also the private sector. This method is likely to lead to homogenisation, and the plan is ultimately hierarchical with leaders trained centrally; centralising tax collection away from local councils has been Conservative policy from the year ____, and that means we have only delegation to 'community groups': you step out of line, you lose your funding. The '15 million strong mutual' isn't so much about providing public services as it is a make-work scheme to soak up unemployment, but with the delightful extra touch of extending the scope of state indoctrination at a critical time....
I feel a persistent urge to post this:
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